Category: North America

Russia, we are told, breached the servers of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), swiped emails and other documents, and released them to the public, to alter the outcome of the U.S. presidential election.

How substantial is the evidence backing these assertions?

Hired by the Democratic National Committee to investigate unusual network activity, the security firm Crowdstrike discovered two separate intrusions on DNC servers. Crowdstrike named the two intruders Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, in an allusion to what it felt were Russian sources. According to Crowdstrike, “Their tradecraft is superb, operational security second to none,” and “both groups were constantly going back into the environment” to change code and methods and switch command and control channels.

Like this:

One can never have too much money. In the United States, the top one percent of the population rakes in almost a quarter of the national income and enjoys forty percent of the wealth. That privileged class sees this situation as a problem. To be precise, they are not getting enough.

For ordinary workers, the recession brought only economic hardship. But for corporate America, it meant opportunity. It was perceived as the chance to mold the economy permanently into something approximating the Third World model: vast wealth and privilege for those at the top, and unemployment, falling wages, and inadequate or nonexistent social services for the rest of society. Read More »